We looked at the RyanAir flight schedule and ascertained that we could fly out Friday evening to the Paris Beavious airport. Being RyanAir, this means that the airport is labeled Paris, but it is analogous to flying to a the Chehalis regional airport in order to get to Seattle. Doable, but not exactly convenient. Although it was a VERY cheap flight, so off we went.
Since we had been to Paris, we decided to rent a car and head into the wine country. We found a hotel in Dijon, France and started driving. I didn't realize that from the airport to the hotel would be 400 km (250 miles) but off we went.
Needless to say we got to our hotel in Dijon quite late, but thanks to the NeverLost navigation unit, we were never lost.
We were greeted on Saturday with a beautiful sunny day:
'Breakfast' Dijon style. As we got in so late we got a little later start than was ideal, so I needed to catch up. Thus the double fist espresso and white wine:
Dijon is known for mustard, but it also happens to be in the heart of Burgundy. Burgundy is the home of Pinot Noir. One of the first things we did in town was to arrange a wine country tour with a driver. Again, the weather was great. And the contrast to Galway made it even that much better:
Above is a typical Chateau that populate the area. Almost every Chateau produces wine.
The most expensive plot of grapes in the World:
This is where the Grand Cru, Romaine Conti comes from. Only the small vineyard behind the stone wall. If you could buy the wine, you can't, you would expect to pay upwards of $3,00-$6,000 per bottle. According to our guide, over 60% of the vineyards production goes to Las Vegas.
The tasting rooms in the Cote d'or are pretty much like you would find in Napa:
The photo didn't turn out as well as I would have liked, but we are in one of the many caves that they use to store wines:
Strangely enough, our tour driver was from Oregon. Born and raised in Dijon, but he had just started a wine import business based out of Portland, Oregon. So he lived in both Dijon and Portland. Just a note from the 'it's a small world after all' department.
After the wine tour, we did a little sightseeing in Dijon. More cool stone churches. Dijon is pretty small. But there were a few REALLY good mustard shops.
We also did a little shopping. Went into a sports shop on their main pedestrian only avenue and they had a bunch of NBA jerseys. Being as we were in France, there was an abundance of Tony Parker and Boris Diaw jersey's (both French) to go with prerequisite Lebron, Wade and Kobe, but in the midst of this I saw a stack of nice authentic Sonics jerseys. Then I remembered that we have the French rookie Mickael Gelabale. I just figured that was the answer. But this is what I found:
I still have no idea why there are a stack of authentic Damien Wilkins Sonics jersey's in the heart of France, but at least we are represented!
On a side note, Paty almost got tackled by the store staff while taking this picture. Apparently the #19 Sonics jersey is proprietary information......
Sunday saw another beautiful day in Dijon. A little sightseeing in town before we drove north to the Paris Gare du'Nord train station.
Our Citroen, which was a suprisingly nice car being that it is French. Wish I had this car in Germany last summer, we had no problem getting it up to 200 km/h on the French version of the Autobahn. Even at that speed I was passed a few times!
On a side note, at one point during the drive north to Paris I was passed by a car with a French liscense plate. Not an event in and of itself, but after the car passed me I noticed a big green zero sticker on the rear window. Well that zero ended up being the ever present Oregon logo sticker.
I felt it was my duty as a Washington Husky supporter and as an American to make an approriate jesture to this French Duck. In case you were worried, mission accomplished.
Now it is off to Brussels and a subsequent post.......
1 comment:
Glad you represented...too bad it was as a Husky :)
Shannon
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